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Saturday, May 30, 2009

The fall of Lucifer

The fall of Lucifer (as well as Adam and Eve) is often thought to present a psychological conundrum. To commit sin, you must desire to sin. How could a sinless being ever form the initial desire to sin?

Even if you subscribe to libertarian freewill, that’s of no avail here. Freewill can’t explain how a sinless being could acquire a sinful motive. What would make sin appealing to a sinless being in the first place? To entertain a sinful desire, you must find sin desirable. How would a sinless being get to that point? How would a sinless agent take the first sinful step?

Once the process is under way, you can explain the outcome, but how does it get underway? How does it ever get started in the first place?

However, this dilemma may be a pseudoproblem. I think the source of the problem lies in the failure to distinguish between possible and actual agents.

The Bible uses certain literary metaphors to describe God. God is the Word, the Logos. The world is like a book. God has written every chapter of the book before the world existed.

So the Bible uses a literary metaphor to describe God’s creatorship. Let’s play along with that illustration.

When a novelist contemplates a novel, he contemplates different characters who may populate his novel. There’s a wide range of things which each character could do. What a character could possibility do is only limited by the imagination of the novelist, as well the relation of one character to other characters, and to his fictional environment.

A possible character can do whatever a novelist can make him do, in the preliminary sense of all the possible actions a novelist can think of. What is possible for the character comes down to what is possible for the novelist to contemplate. All of the possible actions or events which the mind of the novelist can imagine.

However, not all possibilities are compossible. One character must interact with other characters. He must interact with his fictional circumstances. So the range of possibilities is narrowed down by the demands of the story. A coherent story in which what one character does must be consistent with everything else that happens in the story.

Out of the larger range of hypothetical possibilities, the novelist chooses one set of possibilities to write about. He instantiates one set of possibilities to the exclusion of others.

There is, however, no prior constraint on what possible character could do. A merely possible character has no default setting. This no particular course of action which, is left to his own devices, he would have done. Rather, he could have done any number of things. He could have done whatever the novelist could conceive of him doing.

By contrast, an actual character will only do one thing. At a concrete level, he can only do one thing. In the actual story, the novelist selects one combination of serial possibilities to the exclusion of others. The novelist instantiates one combination to the exclusion of others.

When we think about it this way, the fall of Lucifer, or Adam and Eve, doesn’t strike me as especially mysterious or paradoxical. It’s a problem when we start with the concrete individual. With the actual person. It seems out of character for a sinless character to sin.

But, considered as a merely possible agent, there is nothing either in character or out of character. There is nothing in particular which a possible agent was or wasn’t going to do. His field of action is only limited by the imagination of the author. A possible agent is a concept. A concept in the mind of God. A divine idea.

What distinguishes acting out of character from acting in character is subsequently determined by the creative act of the author when he resolves on one set of actions to the exclusion of other possible actions. Only then does the agent have a settled persona.

When God creates Lucifer, he instantiates one possibility–out of many. Considered in abstraction, as a merely possible agent, there is nothing that Lucifer was incapable of doing–consistent with his finitude.

The only thing that delimits his practical field of action is which possible action God chooses to instantiate. There’s a sense in which God makes every creature do whatever it does, but not in the sense of making it do something contrary to what it would otherwise do, when left to its own initiative. For there’s no one thing which a possible agent was going to do, or refrain from doing.

There are certain abstract possibilities which God will not allow to be realized. God’s choices are characterized by his wisdom and justice. But hypothetically speaking, there was no prior constraint on Lucifer’s field of action, or Adam’s field of action. What we have, instead, is a posterior constraint due to the creative act itself. A character can’t act out of character once the novelist has finalized a concrete combination of abstract possibilities. A subset of hypothetical scenarios.

So there is, in a sense, there is nothing to get started–since it doesn’t start with the actual agent. Rather, starts with a possible agent–an agent with an indeterminate field of conceivable actions. God’s creative fiat crystallizes one subset of conceivable actions. Renders an indeterminate possibility a determinate reality. God instantiates that particular idea–his own idea–to the exclusion of other ideas.

Since God is manifesting his glory for the benefit of believers, rather than himself, charges of egotism are fundamentally misdirected.

God doesn't have to "manifest" his glory for himself. A manifestation is for the benefit of the onlooker. Something which couldn't be known apart from the manifestation. But God is aware of his own glory apart from any manifestation thereof.

The "authorship" of sin is a literary metaphor. Before this can even be alleged of God, the objector needs to unpack the metaphor.

It seems like if libertarian freedom is true, then for some ways the will can work, a good desire can be fulfilled in multiple ways, depending on the available objects. If I am thirsty I can choose water or milk to drink. Similarly, I can have a good desire for eternal life. But there can be two different ways of acting for that desire, based on two different objects (specifically two different ways of considering eternal life):

(1) impatiently seeking life, where I do not either wait for the amount of time that I know is necessary in order to appropriately gain it, or take all the known necessary steps to attain it.

(2) patiently seeking life, where I do wait the appropriate amount of time that I know is necessary, and take all the steps I know are necessary.

Notice that the desire that could lead to acting for either of these two objects is good. But I may choose either one if my will is structured so as to be capable of doing so.

Desires can have a wide or narrow intension. For instance, a desire could have the intension of "wanting a chocolate ice cream cone"; this would require specifically chocolate ice cream cones to be fulfilled. A wider intension would be "wanting an ice cream cone". This desire could be fulfilled by any object in the following extension: chocolate ice cream cones, or vanilla, or strawberry.

So God would not have to give the devil or Adam and Eve sinful motives in order for the fall to be a possibility. He would just have to give them wills that had a wide range of possibilities and good desires with a wide intension. A will that could choose to wait or act immediately, plus a desire for eternal life (without specifying the amount of time), when added to knowledge that one should wait and patiently seek eternal life would seem sufficient for explaining how a creature could choose evil without God giving us evil motives. The agent could choose to correctly use, or to misuse, what was known to be good and natural to him or her. Perhaps, though, character development could change the range of actions available to the will, and could change the kinds of desires that agents have.

As to your own explanation, it seems to make God morally responsible for Lucifer's sins. If God creates an angelic agent's character, and that character determines his actions, and at a certain point the only possible action that the angel can perform given their history and circumstances is a sin, then given God's purpose, it is necessary for God to cause this agent to sin via secondary causes. But it seems like we are responsible for whatever necessary means we cause and employ to perform an action we undertake. So if God's action is "glorifying himself" and the necessary means is "causing Lucifer (or some other angel with a different name) to sin" then God is morally responsible for this occurrence. I don't think God causing Lucifer to sin was a necessary means for God accomplishing the action of glorifying himself, so I don't think He's responsible for Lucifer's sin. But it seems to me like you would say that God causing Lucifer to sin (or something relevantly close to it) was a necessary means to his glorification of himself. Would you challenge my principle about necessary means, or the implications I am drawing from it, or something else? I'm still working out exactly what the principle is, so this can be a helpful exercise.

“So God would not have to give the devil or Adam and Eve sinful motives in order for the fall to be a possibility.”

My argument doesn’t require that claim. I’m merely making the point that a sinless agent wouldn’t sin unless he wanted to.

I’m not even arguing that an agent must act on his strongest desire. Merely that, if a sinless agent commits sin, that must be because he wanted to sin. He found something appealing, something desirable in the prospect.

The alternative is to contend that desire plays no role whatsoever in libertarian choice. That libertarian agents don’t choose X because they want to choose. X. But in that case, their choices are purely random.

(I’m not a libertarian. I’m just addressing this for the sake of argument.)

“He would just have to give them wills that had a wide range of possibilities and good desires with a wide intension. A will that could choose to wait or act immediately, plus a desire for eternal life (without specifying the amount of time), when added to knowledge that one should wait and patiently seek eternal life would seem sufficient for explaining how a creature could choose evil without God giving us evil motives.”

No, that’s not sufficient to explain why a sinless agent would sin. A sinless agent can have the freedom to choose between alternate goods. But good desires with a wide range of possibilities do not bridge the gap between good and evil. Good desires would take good possibilities for their objects of choice. That doesn’t begin to explain a good desire for an evil possibility. A desire for an evil possibility would be an evil desire.

“As to your own explanation, it seems to make God morally responsible for Lucifer's sins. If God creates an angelic agent's character, and that character determines his actions, and at a certain point the only possible action that the angel can perform given their history and circumstances is a sin.”

Whatever the merits of that criticism, it’s irrelevant to my own explanation. My explanation isn’t based on character-determinism or created character. Just the opposite.

First of all, I’m discussing the status of the agent anterior to creation. Such an agent has no history.

Or if he has a history, it’s a hypothetical history. Indeed, a number of alternate hypothetical histories.

Secondly, I’m discussing the status of the agent at a point when he has no fixed character. When his character is fluid in the sense that we’d dealing with all the possible permutations. Lucifer 1.0, Lucifer 2.0, Lucifer 3.0, &c.

Strictly speaking, he has no numerically singular identity at this point. Rather, he represents a finite continuum of variant possibilities in terms of his characterization. Different ways he could be. Different things he could do.

It’s true that when God creates Lucifer, that creative act locks in his psychological make-up. But that’s not the point.

The point is that when God contemplates a possible agent, the agent has no determinate character or course of action. Rather, the agent can do whatever God can think of him doing.

Creation selects for one of these possibilities. Creation causes that possibility to be realized. But it doesn’t cause the agent to do something in the sense of making him act other than how he’d act on his own. It’s not as if a possible agent was going to do one thing rather than another. Rather, as a merely possible agent, he could do a number of different things. A possible agent doesn’t have a bias one way or the other in terms of what he’d do. There is no predisposition to do A rather than B, or B rather than A. At this juncture, his field of action is only delimited by what is logically compossible. By what God can coherently “imagine” or conceive relation to the same basic subject.

“Then given God's purpose, it is necessary for God to cause this agent to sin via secondary causes.”

I’m not discussing secondary causes or even primary causes–for at this point I’m addressing a situation which is logically prior to creation.

“But it seems like we are responsible for whatever necessary means we cause and employ to perform an action we undertake. So if God's action is ‘glorifying himself’ and the necessary means is ‘causing Lucifer (or some other angel with a different name) to sin’ then God is morally responsible for this occurrence.”

Depends on what you mean. There’s a sense in which God is responsible for whatever happens in his world–although that doesn’t make him solely responsible.

If by “moral” responsibility you mean that God is (ex hypothesi) culpable, then, of course, I disagree. But there is a sense in which God is (inculpably) morally responsible for whatever happens. God is a moral agent. The exemplar of goodness. God is a morally responsible agent, in the sense that his actions are never unjust or morally capricious.

“I don't think God causing Lucifer to sin was a necessary means for God accomplishing the action of glorifying himself, so I don't think He's responsible for Lucifer's sin. But it seems to me like you would say that God causing Lucifer to sin (or something relevantly close to it) was a necessary means to his glorification of himself. Would you challenge my principle about necessary means, or the implications I am drawing from it, or something else? I'm still working out exactly what the principle is, so this can be a helpful exercise.”

That was no part of my original post. That issue was introduced by a commenter.

My post was on the subject of action theory. There are different components to a complete theodicy. One component involves action theory.

Another component, which you’re now discussing, is God’s rationale for creating a world wherein some of his rational agents (men and angels) will fall into sin. That’s a separate issue. Important in its own right, but quite distinct from the issue I was originally addressing.

I also think that the terminology about God glorifying himself is misleading. I realize that’s popular in some circles, but it doesn’t conduce to theological or theodicean clarity.

God has no need to glorify himself. Rather, he does things which manifest his glory to and for the elect.

And, yes, I think the fall of Lucifer, as well as Adam’s fall, was instrumental in that program.

“My argument doesn’t require that claim. I’m merely making the point that a sinless agent wouldn’t sin unless he wanted to.”

Sure, and I’m contesting that the sense in which this is true would require that God give an agent a specific desire *to sin*.

You wrote:

“I’m not even arguing that an agent must act on his strongest desire. Merely that, if a sinless agent commits sin, that must be because he wanted to sin. He found something appealing, something desirable in the prospect.”

Sure. But I’m saying that an agent doesn’t have to have the desire to sin, or to find sin appealing. That is to say, the agent doesn’t have to have the specific, narrow desire “I want to sin, because I like the idea of sinning”. If God caused agents to have this kind of desire, that would be a problem on my view. But I’m saying He doesn’t have to in order for the fall to be possible.

You wrote:

“The alternative is to contend that desire plays no role whatsoever in libertarian choice. That libertarian agents don’t choose X because they want to choose. X. But in that case, their choices are purely random.”

I agree that this is a necessary condition for an agent to be responsible and free, and not just a random action-generator.

You wrote:

“No, that’s not sufficient to explain why a sinless agent would sin. A sinless agent can have the freedom to choose between alternate goods. But good desires with a wide range of possibilities do not bridge the gap between good and evil. Good desires would take good possibilities for their objects of choice. That doesn’t begin to explain a good desire for an evil possibility. A desire for an evil possibility would be an evil desire.”

I’m not trying to explain why a sinless agent would sin, only why a sinless agent could sin. So I’m giving necessary conditions, which would have to be supplemented by agent-causal undertaking of an action in order to be a sufficient condition for sin.

You’re right, by themselves, good desires with a wide range of possibilities do not bridge the gap between good and evil. Arguably, God has a lot of different good desires (if desire just equals “a wanting”), and He can’t choose evil. But if one had good desires that were appropriate to act on at some time t1 and not at another time t2, and one had a will that could act during either t1 or t2, plus other conditions needed for moral responsibility, then that would be sufficient for one to be *capable* of sinning. In other words, good desires that can be wrongly employed are sufficient for the possibility of sin.

It’s only true that a desire for an evil possibility is an evil desire if one must have a desire with a narrow intension that is *specifically* for evil in order to be able to sin. But I rarely if ever have a specific desire for evil when I sin. I sometimes have good desires, some of which are inappropriate to act on at a given moment. But I often act on one of these good desires even when it is not appropriate. That seems like sin to me. I don’t usually seem to have the desire in myself “wow, I really want to wrongly employ my good desires right now”. That may happen sometimes, but its not a necessary condition for sin. And so long as God does not have to give us that specific desire to wrongly employ our good desires, He does not have to give us a desire to *specifically* do evil.

You wrote:

“Whatever the merits of that criticism, it’s irrelevant to my own explanation... By what God can coherently “imagine” or conceive relation to the same basic subject.”

Sure. I understand that all. I’m just interested in bringing out the fact that an explanation of the origin of sin that makes God responsible for it in certain ways is, to many people, an inadequate explanation.

“I’m not discussing secondary causes or even primary causes–for at this point I’m addressing a situation which is logically prior to creation.”

Sure, and I’m drawing out the temporal implications of this situation.

You wrote:

“Depends on what you mean. There’s a sense in which God is responsible for whatever happens in his world–although that doesn’t make him solely responsible.

If by “moral” responsibility you mean that God is (ex hypothesi) culpable, then, of course, I disagree. But there is a sense in which God is (inculpably) morally responsible for whatever happens. God is a moral agent. The exemplar of goodness. God is a morally responsible agent, in the sense that his actions are never unjust or morally capricious.”

Right, I know you would disagree. I’m challenging that disagreement, because the sense in which I meant “morally responsible” is “culpable”. So my principle will have to be reformulated:

“We are praiseworthy or blameworthy for whatever necessary means we cause and employ to perform an action we undertake.”

You wrote:

“Another component, which you’re now discussing, is God’s rationale for creating a world wherein some of his rational agents (men and angels) will fall into sin. That’s a separate issue. Important in its own right, but quite distinct from the issue I was originally addressing.”

Granted. And again, because your view of agent choice specification requires that agents doing evil is a necessary means to God’s accomplishing his purposes, I’m thinking it makes God culpable for what those agents do.

You wrote:

“And, yes, I think the fall of Lucifer, as well as Adam’s fall, was instrumental in that program.”

Do you think it was a necessary instrument (or that something similar to it, like a different angel falling, was necessary)?

MG said:---Granted. And again, because your view of agent choice specification requires that agents doing evil is a necessary means to God’s accomplishing his purposes, I’m thinking it makes God culpable for what those agents do.---

I assume from your profile that you're Eastern Orthodox, so I don't have to answer this the way I would to an atheist :-) That being the case, I was wondering how your above notion fits in with the historical examples both of Joseph and of Jesus (although they are by no means the only examples I could give).

In the instance of Joseph, we have Joseph's specific statement in Genesis 50:20, namely: "you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good."

Obviously, the treatment Joseph received from his brothers was evil. His brothers would have been justly condemned. Yet their actions, unjust as they were, were specifically ordained by God for the purpose of saving many lives. That's why Joseph could say, "You meant it for evil but God meant it for good."

A) Joseph obviously did not hold God culpable for his brother's actions.

B) Joseph also believed God to have been in control of his brother's actions, else God could not have "meant it for good."

And that brings us to the second example, the example of Christ. Jesus was killed by unrighteous men in order that God's righteous plan would be fulfilled. This dual action is seen in Acts 2:23, namely: "this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men."

Here is is said that Jesus's death was the very PLAN of God, yet those who did it were still "lawless" (or evil). Yet Peter, who delivered this sermon at Pentecost, obviously does not view God as morally culpable.

Given this, would you not agree that it is possible for God to predestine evil without being morally culpable?

Link to Aquinas' thoughts on this issue in his Summahttp://www.newadvent.org/summa/3163.htm

Echoing Aquinas, the great Puritan theologian Stephen Charnock said "Unbelief was the first sin, and pride was the first-born of it."

While this issue is riddled with mystery, Charnock's statement makes some sense to me. Adam and Eve would not have sinned if they had merely believed God and not doubted. It was Lucifer's temptation that deceived (especially Eve) them into thinking there were other possible futures than those which God declared (believe & obey = life; doubt & disobey = death).

As finite creatures, no amount of their inductive investigations could lead to the truth that God is omniscient, omnipotent and all-truthful. While Adam and Eve's fall is less problematic because they were tempted (through deception) by the Devil, the Devil wasn't tempted by anyone (i.e. there was no Devil to tempt the Devil/Lucifer). So, as problematic as Adam and Eve's fall is, Lucifer's is even more so.

However, we can note that before his fall, all that Lucifer had ever experienced was a favorable fellowship and relationship with God. He had never experienced God as anything other than loving and (or at the very least) kind/generous. While there's no indication in Scripture that God ever loved or loves angels, we can confidently infer that God was kind to them. Creation itself is a form of kindness. Relationship and even the privilege of worshipping the Supreme Being is a kindness (the greatest). God's angelic theophanies (that is, His manifestations of Himself toward angels) may have lead angels like Lucifer to underestimate God's greatness, power, and wisdom since all revelations and manifestations will of necessity not be exhaustive of God as He is in Himself.

From that ignorance and their natural and God given and God encouraged desire for knowledge and power, they may have sought a natural good in an unnatural way and to an unnatural degree. Hence, Lucifer wanted to be "like God" not merely in the good sense of imitating God, but wanting to be on the same level as God (either with/alongside OR in the place of/instead of/replacement of God). That same desire was what he attempted to stir in Adam and Eve. To be "elohim" (like "God" or "gods" alongside and equals).

These musing of mine might not solve all the problems, but it can show some of the possible psychological motivations that went into their falls.

My point in mentioning the fact that Lucifer (and by extention Adam and Eve) had only experienced the goodness of God was to point out the fact that Lucifer had never experienced the holy wrath of God. Maybe Lucifer thought it unworthy of such an obviously lavishly gracious God to punish sin. Then, taking God's kindness for granted thought it was unfair that He got all the praise and worship. Hence the descriptions in Isa. 14 and Ezek. 28.

"In the instance of Joseph, we have Joseph's specific statement in Genesis 50:20, namely: "you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good."... That's why Joseph could say, "You meant it for evil but God meant it for good."

A) Joseph obviously did not hold God culpable for his brother's actions.

B) Joseph also believed God to have been in control of his brother's actions, else God could not have "meant it for good."

Here’s how I would understand Genesis 50:20. God did not intend evil against Joseph, only good. Therefore God did not contribute to the occurrence of any evil. He chose to make the event described occur, but not by determining the character or actions of the agents that did evil. Rather, God chose to permit that specific evil instead of some other evil; this is because it was the best way for his will to be accomplished in that circumstance. However, his choice to permit that specific evil instead of another specific evil did not mean that it was necessary that *any* evil occur in that situation (or any other) order for God’s will to be accomplished; nor does it mean that God contributed to accomplishing good by trying to make the character or actions of the evil agents *morally worse*; nor did it mean that *given the circumstances* God could have prevented the evil that happened (without sacrificing some overriding goods, probably those relevant to creaturely freedom). In the circumstance, creatures chose to misuse their freedom, and God permitted this for various reasons. And because God foreknew that evil would be done, He planned that the situation would turn out best, by turning the events and agents as much as He could (given creaturely free agency) for good.

So in a qualified and relevant sense, God was in control of Joseph’s brothers’ actions. He did not intend that they do evil, or contribute to increasing their wickedness, however. God was in control of the circumstances insofar as He intended (in the way I explained above) to bring about those circumstances as the best way to accomplish what was good for Joseph and others. God was therefore not blameworthy for any of the evil that occurred.

“And that brings us to the second example, the example of Christ... Yet Peter, who delivered this sermon at Pentecost, obviously does not view God as morally culpable.”

I think an analogous answer to the above can be given for how God was inculpable for the planned and foreknown occurrence of the crucifixion. God’s plan and foreknowledge only included the evil actions of creatures because that’s one of several ways God could have permitted evil to happen in those circumstances. Because God foresaw that evil was going to be done, He planned/actualized circumstances so as to minimize the amount of creaturely free evil and still accomplish his plans. But God did not contribute to making the character or actions of the agents worse; nor did He need the evil agents to accomplish his purposes; nor does this mean that given the circumstances (creaturely misuse of free will included), God could have ordered the world in a way that included less evil. So again, God is permissively involved in choosing to actualize that specific circumstance. Hence He is not culpable for any of the evils that occur.

You wrote:

“Given this, would you not agree that it is possible for God to predestine evil without being morally culpable?”

It depends on what we mean by predestine. God can predestine events by choosing to actualize them, without this requiring that God contributes to increasing the evil character or motives of the agents involved (beyond what those agents themselves have done). Nor does it require that God determine the evil actions of creatures—just that He choose one way of permitting creatures to do evil. God does not do evil that good may come of it, for He is not tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone to do evil. But God can use evil things for good purposes, given that some evil is made (contingently) unavoidable (by creaturely misuse of freedom—a misuse that is not metaphysically necessary given the circumstances).

Does this make sense? I’m not sure its right, but its how I would reconcile the passages you mentioned with how I understand God’s goodness.

“Sure, and I’m contesting that the sense in which this is true would require that God give an agent a specific desire *to sin*.”

We need to unpack that assertion:

i) There’s a generic sense in which God gives us everything we are, including our character and our motives, by giving us existence. That’s generally the case for every creature, by virtue of his Creatorship.

The question at issue is whether that sense of giving is morally relevant to the problem of evil.

ii) At the level I’m discussing the issue, character or motives don’t determine (or cause) what an agent would or will do. For there’s no one thing which a possible agent would or will do. Rather, a particular course of action is simply one logical possibility. At this level, the only constraint on the agent’s field of action is a logical impediment. At this level, it’s not a question of what determines his action, but what, if anything, delimits his sphere of action. Is there some logical constraint (i.e. logical incompossibility) which prevents a possible agent from doing one thing rather than another.

iii) Apropos (ii), at this level of abstraction, specific motives don’t cause the agent to do anything in particular, or anything in general. That’s because, in the discussion of a possible agent (using the model of God as Ideal Novelist), we’re considering the identity and behavior of the agent in isolation to other dynamics which come into play in the complete story or history. We’re confining ourselves to possible world-segment. Indeed, several different world-segments.

iv) Apropos (ii)-(iii), what determines his action is when God instantiates a particular possibility. At the level of God’s primary causality (i.e. creation), what determines the action is not the agent’s character or motives, but God’s instantiation of one possibility to the exclusion of others.

v) If you wanted to, I suppose you could say that God, as Ideal Novelist, gives a possible agent a motive. Of course, at that abstract level, a possible agent lacks an actual motive since a merely possible agent is not a conscious agent. He’s just a divine idea. God’s idea of a conscious agent, with conscious or subconscious motives. The idea of a conscious agent is not, itself, a conscious agent. It has no real mental life beyond the divine mode of cognition.

vi) At most, God’s creative fiat reifies that abstract motive. Again, though, God is causing or making the agent do X, not so much by giving him a specific motive, but by reifying one abstract possibility to the exclusion of others. That is how God determines the agent to do X.

vii) Of course, concrete agents do have real motives. That is a factor in their choices. And that takes us into the realm of secondary causality. But the way God is causing the outcome is not to give the agent a specific motive, but to instantiate one logical possibility to the exclusion of other logical possibilities. That’s the differential factor which turns an indeterminate possibility into a determinate reality.

viii) In addition, the question of culpability is ordinarily tied, not merely to “giving the agent a specific motive,” but to causing the agent to do something contrary to what he would otherwise have done were he given a choice in the matter. I’m not conceding that to be a valid objection. But that’s the stock objection to determinism.

However, on my model, that objection has no force, for it’s not as if a possible agent was going to do one thing until God intervened to make him do something else.

Is God wronging the agent by making him exist? Is God wronging the agent by reifying that specific possibility–rather than some other possibility? Not that I can see.

“Sure. But I’m saying that an agent doesn’t have to have the desire to sin, or to find sin appealing. That is to say, the agent doesn’t have to have the specific, narrow desire ‘I want to sin, because I like the idea of sinning’…It’s only true that a desire for an evil possibility is an evil desire if one must have a desire with a narrow intension that is *specifically* for evil in order to be able to sin. But I rarely if ever have a specific desire for evil when I sin. I sometimes have good desires, some of which are inappropriate to act on at a given moment. But I often act on one of these good desires even when it is not appropriate. That seems like sin to me. I don’t usually seem to have the desire in myself ‘wow, I really want to wrongly employ my good desires right now’. That may happen sometimes, but its not a necessary condition for sin.”

i) You’re imposing an artificial restriction on what constitutes a sinful motive. Not many agents do evil for the sake of evil. A Satanist may do evil for the sake of evil. He wants to do evil for its own sake in the sense that he’s consciously opposing God, and thus, consciously rejecting everything that’s good and decent.

But we can’t reasonably restrict sinful motives to the subset of human agents who happen to be hardcore Satanists!

ii) All you’re doing here, it seems to me, is to distinguish between means and ends. I may do X, not because I want to do X, per se, but because X is the only way to achieve Y. What I really want is Y. But X is a necessary means of achieving Y.

Now you can draw that distinction, but while that’s a psychologically or teleologically tenable distinction, it’s not a morally salient distinction.

a) Suppose I’m stranded on a lifeboat with my best friend. I want to survive. So I murder my friend. I do so because the food and fresh water will go twice as far if I don’t have to divide the supplies by two.

I don’t want to murder my friend. I don’t have a specific desire to murder my friend. My specific desire is to survive. But this doesn’t mean I have an innocent motive to murder my friend. “Don’t take it so personal! This ain’t about you! You just happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Bad luck!”

b) Or suppose two friends fall in love with the same woman. This generates a dilemma. They can’t, at one and the same time, both have the same woman and also maintain their friendship. They are rivals for the woman’s affection. Suppose I murder my friend to eliminate the rival.

Now, I don’t want to murder my friend. Indeed, I find it emotionally painful to murder my friend. I love my friend. But I love the woman even more, and murdering my friend is the only way to get the girl. Yet this doesn’t mean I have an innocent motive to murder my friend.

c) Or, to take a somewhat different example: suppose I want to find the cure for cancer. But there’s a catch: in order to succeed, I need to experiment on human subjects. Some of the test subjects will die as a result of my experiments. Needless to say, I lack volunteers. So I kidnap test subjects and conduct my medical experiments against their will. Nine out of ten die, but eventually I hit upon a cure, which saves millions of lives.

I have a noble motive, in the sense of having a noble goal. I don’t want to kill test subjects. That’s an incidental consequence of my objective. An unfortunate side-effect. But the purity of my motives doesn’t exculpate my methods.

“But if one had good desires that were appropriate to act on at some time t1 and not at another time t2, and one had a will that could act during either t1 or t2, plus other conditions needed for moral responsibility, then that would be sufficient for one to be *capable* of sinning. In other words, good desires that can be wrongly employed are sufficient for the possibility of sin.”

i) No, that’s not sufficient. If it’s wrong to act at t2, then acting at t2 involves sinful intent. To wrongly employ a good desire involves a desire to do wrong. At that point, the good desire ceases to be good. The desire is good in the abstract, all things being equal–but all things considered, the desire is evil rather than good as soon as said desire is misdirected. If the desire takes a sinful object, then the desire is sinful.

ii) Let’s also keep in mind that I’m not discussing what is necessary and/or sufficient for a sinful agent to commit sin, but what’s necessary and/or sufficient for a sinless agent to commit sin. There’s a different threshold in the case of an agent who is already sinful.

To account for how a sinful agent is motivated to sin does not, of itself, account for how a sinless agent is motivated to sin. Once you get started, it’s easier to keep going. That fails to explain how you get start from scratch, with no predisposition to sin.

“I’m just interested in bringing out the fact that an explanation of the origin of sin that makes God responsible for it in certain ways is, to many people, an inadequate explanation.”

Well, a Christian can’t avoid making God responsible “in certain ways” for the origin of sin. As the Creator of the world, God was in a position to prevent the outcome. The outcome was under his total control.

The question at issue is not whether God is responsible “in a certain sense,” but in a morally relevant (i.e. culpable) sense.

In Christian theology, we have to play the hand we’ve been dealt. There may be different ways to play the same hand, but we can’t tell the dealer to start with a fresh deck and deal us a new hand. To be a Christian commits us to certain preexisting assumptions.

“Sure, and I’m drawing out the temporal implications of this situation.”

The question is whether the temporal implications add something morally pertinent to the atemporal factors.

“We are praiseworthy or blameworthy for whatever necessary means we cause and employ to perform an action we undertake.”

i) I don’t accept that as a universal proposition. I don’t think it’s equally true for God and man. In the case of human agents, our opportunities are frequently constrained by our concrete circumstances. Take human shields. If the enemy fires behind a phalanx of civilians, do our soldiers have the right to return fire, even though exercising their right of self-defense will entail civilian casualties? I’d answer in the affirmative. Our soldiers didn’t create this situation. Given that situation, their options are limited. And that’s a mitigating factor.

ii) Counterfactually speaking, God is blameworthy if he does evil. But, of course, I don’t concede the conditional. The question turns on whether or not we consider the means to be licit or illicit. You can’t assume at the outset that the means are illicit without begging the question.

“Granted. And again, because your view of agent choice specification requires that agents doing evil is a necessary means to God’s accomplishing his purposes, I’m thinking it makes God culpable for what those agents do.”

i) Only if you disregard key qualifications in my model of human action theory.

ii) Moreover, it’s not as if we’re theologians ensconced in an unfallen world, where we can debate the hypothetical question of whether it would be permissible for God to make a world in which evil occurs. Rather, we’re dealing with a situation in which evil is a fact of life. So that’s our point of reference. (At least, one point of reference.) We don’t have the luxury of debating the abstract merits or demerits of this outcome–as if it were just some imaginary thought-experiment.

iii) Given the fact of evil, the next question is whether evil does or doesn’t serve a purpose in the divine economy. If you think it’s a problem to say that evil is instrumental in the realization of some otherwise unobtainable good, then the alternative is to treat natural and moral evils as gratuitous evils. There is no compensatory benefit which justifies their occurrence. That doesn’t strike me as a very promising candidate for a Christian theodicy. A teleological theodicy predicated on second-order goods is far more promising than the claim that evil serves no higher purpose, even though God was in position to preempt or eliminate every moral or natural evil.

“Do you think it was a necessary instrument (or that something similar to it, like a different angel falling, was necessary)?”

Depends on the level of specificity or generality. If the manifestation of certain divine attributes is a worthy goal, and if their manifestation is contingent on the existence of certain conditions, then, at a general level, those conditions are a necessary means in the realization of that goal.

However, many variations are conceivable. Gabriel could fall instead of Lucifer. Thaddeus could betray Jesus instead of Judas.

Each variation would entail certain corresponding adjustments. Changing one variable changes some other variables. It all has to balance out. But different configurations are possible.

i) Adam and Eve had a human nature which was both actualized and particularized. A nature which they shared in common with their fellow human beings to be, but also a nature which was specific to them as individuals.

ii) More to the point, though, Gen 3 represents one possible outcome. There are possible worlds in which Lucifer never fell. Possible worlds in which Adam fell, but not Eve, or vice versa. Possible worlds in which Adam and Eve never fell.

In Gen 3, God reifies one of those possible outcomes.

If you like, you can say Adam and Eve had possible natures which God actualized by making them.

But depending on which possible world we're discussing, the nature is differently particularized–corresponding to differential outcomes.

I’m not sure that the “psychological conundrum” which you raise initially is resolved by showing that God ordains that it would take place. This still doesn’t explain how a transition from sinless to sinful takes place for an agent; it merely reiterates that it happened according to God’s wise planning. That God can conceive of and bring about any possibility that He chooses doesn’t explain how the choice from good to evil occurs in the experience of a created being, which is the issue you posed initially, if I’ve understood you correctly.

Also, in your post on 5/30/2009 at 2:59PM you said, “…there is a sense in which God is (inculpably) morally responsible for whatever happens.” Can you substantiate the distinction between being morally responsible for an evil event and being inculpably morally responsible for an evil event? How can one be morally responsible for an evil event (such as The Fall) and not simultaneously be morally culpable for that event? Doesn't responsibility imply culpability, at least?

I pretty much already answered the question of how, being created good, a sinless person can sin. I don't believe the Augustinian tradition can answer this question in any kind of consistent manner. Indeed, without God just making you from a condition of good to bad, there is no way. The sin comes about by a 'leap' as it were.

“I’m not sure that the ‘psychological conundrum’ which you raise initially is resolved by showing that God ordains that it would take place.”

I never said that divine ordination, per se, resolves the conundrum.

“This still doesn’t explain how a transition from sinless to sinful takes place for an agent; it merely reiterates that it happened according to God’s wise planning.”

I didn’t simply appeal to God’s plan.

And my model does explain the transition. When we’re dealing with a merely possible agent, the transition in question concerns what is logically possible, and not what is psychologically impossible. At this abstract level, nothing is psychologically impossible unless it’s logically impossible (i.e. a logically incompossible state of affairs).

Or, if you want to cast it in psychological terms, that has reference, first and foremost, not to the psychology of the possible agent, but to the psychology of the divine thinker. What a possible agent can or cannot do is the measure of whatever God can conceive of him doing. The only impediment to what a possible agent can do is a logical contradiction. As long as the transition is logically consistent, it’s possible.

“That God can conceive of and bring about any possibility that He chooses doesn’t explain how the choice from good to evil occurs in the experience of a created being.”

Sure it does. For the experience of the human agent qua created agent is simply the spatiotemporal transcription of God’s concept of the human agent. Turning his abstract idea into a concrete reality doesn’t change the outcome.

“Doesn't responsibility imply culpability, at least?”

You’re conflating two distinct issues. Responsibility is a precondition of culpability. But responsibility is hardly synonymous with culpability.

“How can one be morally responsible for an evil event (such as The Fall) and not simultaneously be morally culpable for that event?”

Suppose I’m the president of Columbia. Suppose drug cartels have made life a living hell. Suppose I lack the resources to directly confront the drug cartels.

Suppose my solution is to infiltrate the drug cartels and plant sees of mutual suspicion between one drug lord and another. I turn the drug lords against each other. They destroy each other in bitter turf wars.

It’s sinful for the members of one drug cartel to murder the members of another drug cartel, and vice versa. However, it’s not sinful for me to instigate that outcome. If they kill each other, that’s poetic justice.

On your own terms: what possible agent across possible worlds could God select that results in Adam/Lucifer sinning? There shouldn't be one according to this logic if one's nature determines a person's action and they are created good in each case. I don't see a good reason to think so anyways.

I think there is a much better answer without having to retreat to speculations about 'possible world scenarios.'

Are you saying that God can instantiate a possible agent, and cause the outcome of her acting in a morally responsible (compatiblisitic) way, without also choosing to instantiate her specific desires?

Regardless of the usual way questions of culpability are raised, I’m wanting to target the question of whether or not the choice to actualize agents with specific desires is something that God could be culpable for.

Are there *any* ways that God could have actualized agents (even if only per impossible, due to the limitations on what He can actualize according to his perfect goodness) that would have wronged them?

I understand the means-ends distinction and how you’re using it to criticize my point. Granted the way I framed the issue above was unhelpful. So I will try to introduce an (obvious, not novel) intermediate category of desire between a desire for a good end that specifies neither good nor bad means, and a desire for a bad end employing bad means: a desire for a good end specifically utilizing bad means. Consider the distinction between:

(1) “I want to eat to survive”

and

(2) “I want to eat my children to survive”

and

(3) “I want to eat my children because I want to do evil”

Any of these desires could lead to my eating my children (I actually don’t have any, though, so don’t worry). If the will is structured to have the alternative possibilities (when the requisite desires exist) of “eat my children” or “don’t eat my children” and I have any (or all) of these three desires, I would be capable of eating my children.

The second category of desire (good end, bad means) encompasses the motivation that most people seem to have for why they do wrong. It seems appropriate to call this an evil desire; so you are right that there must be a wider conception of what an evil desire is.

But if my initial explanation of an evil desire was too narrow, I worry yours is too broad. My point about desires of type (1) still seems to hold, insfar as the desire itself does not specify an evil means. Obviously the means employed are part of what makes an action right or wrong. But if libertarianism is true, then it is possible for a desire to fail to specify the exact means by which a goal can be accomplished, encompassing the possible use of a variety of means.

Would you describe a person with (1) as someone with a “tendency to do evil”? I don’t think the desire to eat is a tendency to do evil, even though I think (1) could be acted on by employing evil means.

“i) No, that’s not sufficient. If it’s wrong to act at t2, then acting at t2 involves sinful intent. To wrongly employ a good desire involves a desire to do wrong. At that point, the good desire ceases to be good. The desire is good in the abstract, all things being equal–but all things considered, the desire is evil rather than good as soon as said desire is misdirected. If the desire takes a sinful object, then the desire is sinful.”

i) I can agree with this, I suppose. The one qualification I can introduce is this: a desire for good (which fails to specify evil means) becomes sinful not when evil means are presented to it, but when an agent *acts* so as to use those evil means. So a desire becomes sinful if it takes a sinful object, so long as we understand “takes” as meaning “is acted on by employing”.

I think what you meant, though, is that a desire becomes evil as soon as an evil object is presented to it, regardless of whether or not that object is acted for fulfilling one’s end. But why think this is true? If by evil you just mean “could potentially lead to evil” then I can agree; but that’s not what’s normally meant by “evil”. And it would be pretty unimpressive if that’s what non-Calvinists were committed to as far as a precondition for the possibility of the fall. When I think of “evil desire” I think “a desire that is dysteleological in either specific means or specific ends or both”.

“ii) Let’s also keep in mind that I’m not discussing what is necessary and/or sufficient for a sinful agent to commit sin, but what’s necessary and/or sufficient for a sinless agent to commit sin. There’s a different threshold in the case of an agent who is already sinful.

To account for how a sinful agent is motivated to sin does not, of itself, account for how a sinless agent is motivated to sin. Once you get started, it’s easier to keep going. That fails to explain how you get start from scratch, with no predisposition to sin.”

ii) It sure seems like the account I’ve given explains how an agent can go from sinless to sinful (so long as sinless is not understood to mean *incapable of sin*). How is it inadequate?

Obviously what matters is whether God is culpable for our sins. To reformulate what I was trying to say, the kind of explanation you are employing to explain the origin of sin seems to make God culpable in the eyes of some people (myself included).

It sure seems like the temporal implications of your atemporal considerations would add something morally pertinent, if the temporal implications included God needing to specify the specific desires that lead to an agent performing an evil action.

[Concerning my principle: “We are praiseworthy or blameworthy for whatever necessary means we cause and employ to perform an action we undertake.”]

“i) I don’t accept that as a universal proposition. I don’t think it’s equally true for God and man. In the case of human agents, our opportunities are frequently constrained by our concrete circumstances. Take human shields. If the enemy fires behind a phalanx of civilians, do our soldiers have the right to return fire, even though exercising their right of self-defense will entail civilian casualties? I’d answer in the affirmative. Our soldiers didn’t create this situation. Given that situation, their options are limited. And that’s a mitigating factor.”

Right, that’s why I included “means we cause”. Also, I should further revise the definition:

“We are praiseworthy or blameworthy for

(1) necessary means we cause and/or employ(2) sufficient, non-necessary means we have control over the use of, and choose to employ from among a set of possible means

ii) Even if we do not assume from the outset that the means are illicit, it is at least possible that one could construct an argument that the means are illicit, though. Right?

i) What qualifications in your model of human action would make God blameless for the evil done by human beings?

ii) I’m not debating hypotheticals; I am trying to understand what is actual. If God’s goodness is actual, and so is evil, how are we to understand that fact?

iii) That seems to obscure the issue and present a false alternative. The issue is whether or not God is justified in permitting evil. It might be the case that God is justified in permitting evils even if they are gratuitous. Permission of gratuitous evil could still be justified if the gratuitous evil was an unnecessary and unwanted side effect that was necessarily made possible by a prior, necessary good—such as libertarian freedom, etc. So God wouldn’t be in a position to eliminate every moral and natural evil. But this is because they are unnecessary consequences of a prior good that necessarily includes the possibility of evil, and contingently results in the occurrence of evil—not because they are necessary means to an otherwise unrealizable end.

Also, it is a false alternative to say that either evil is instrumental in the realization of some otherwise unobtainable good, or evils are gratuitous. Evil could be unnecessary for the realization of all goods of overriding importance, without being useless to God given the fact of its occurrence. Once evil occurs (or is anticipated) as an unwanted side effect that was necessarily made possible by giving creatures a specific kind of freedom, God can use evil for good purposes. He can order things for good ends and bring good out of the evil that creatures will cause.

Why think the manifestation of any divine attributes requires the existence of evil? I don’t know about you, but my intuition is that God sure doesn’t seem very sovereign if He needs evil in order to do certain needed goods.

“Are you saying that God can instantiate a possible agent, and cause the outcome of her acting in a morally responsible (compatiblisitic) way, without also choosing to instantiate her specific desires?”

He instantiates his complete concept of a possible agent. That includes her possible desires.

The actual world corresponds to God’s complete concept for the actual world. God is the Creator.

What’s the alternative? To think there are gaps in God’s plan for the world? That God didn’t plan for David to lust after Bathsheba? Or that God didn’t implement his plan?

How would that even work? A reality which is honeycombed with pockets of nothingness–awaiting creative human volitions. But there’s a continuous quality to the finite world. Interlocking existents.

“Regardless of the usual way questions of culpability are raised, I’m wanting to target the question of whether or not the choice to actualize agents with specific desires is something that God could be culpable for.”

If would be culpable if he had no good reason for what he did.

“Are there *any* ways that God could have actualized agents (even if only per impossible, due to the limitations on what He can actualize according to his perfect goodness) that would have wronged them?”

Intuitively speaking, it would seem to be culpable were God to make the agent do something other than what the agent intended to do, if allowed to act on his own initiative (in cases where the agent does wrong)–then punished him for it.

But, as I’ve explained, there’s no one thing a possible agent would do.

“My point about desires of type (1) still seems to hold, insfar as the desire itself does not specify an evil means. Obviously the means employed are part of what makes an action right or wrong. But if libertarianism is true, then it is possible for a desire to fail to specify the exact means by which a goal can be accomplished, encompassing the possible use of a variety of means.__Would you describe a person with (1) as someone with a “tendency to do evil”? I don’t think the desire to eat is a tendency to do evil, even though I think (1) could be acted on by employing evil means.”

You can isolate these for purposes of logical analysis, but that’s artificially abstract when we consider the concrete psychology of decision-making.

i) Either I have a specific package of desires and actions to service my desires…

Or,

ii) I have a specific desire, but am I’m ignorant about and indifferent to the intervening steps by which I satisfy my desire. I don’t have a specific plan of action. Any successful plan of action will suffice.

“I think what you meant, though, is that a desire becomes evil as soon as an evil object is presented to it, regardless of whether or not that object is acted for fulfilling one’s end.”

i) Merely presenting an evil object to a desire doesn’t make the desire evil. What makes the desire evil is if it desires the evil object. You might present an evil object to me which I find undesirable.

ii) In addition, there are evil mental acts as well as evil outward acts. Maybe I want to murder someone. If I thought I could get away with it, I would murder him. My desire is evil even though I never act on my desire.

“It sure seems like the account I’ve given explains how an agent can go from sinless to sinful (so long as sinless is not understood to mean *incapable of sin*). How is it inadequate?”

You said, speaking autobiographically, “But I rarely if ever have a specific desire for evil when I sin. I sometimes have good desires, some of which are inappropriate to act on at a given moment. But I often act on one of these good desires even when it is not appropriate.”

And many sinners can relate to that illustration. That doesn’t explain why a sinless agent would act inappropriately.

“It sure seems like the temporal implications of your atemporal considerations would add something morally pertinent, if the temporal implications included God needing to specify the specific desires that lead to an agent performing an evil action.”

i) The temporal event is the temporal transcript of a timeless event (i.e. God’s idea of what a possible agent did). At the abstract level of a divine concept, no actual motive induces the agent to perform an evil action. A possible agent has no actual motives. And even if he’s given a motive in God’s mental construct, he doesn’t have an actual motive as long as he’s a merely possible agent. At that point he is not a conscious being.

ii) The reason he performs an evil action is not because he’s motivated to do so, but because that’s a logical possibility. There’s no one thing in particular that a merely possible agent would or will do.

It’s not an issue of what motivates him, as if this were a psychological question–but an issue of what is logically conceivable. Is a given course of action self-contradictory? That’s the only constraint on his field of action. It’s less a matter of what “leads” a possible agent to do x, y, and z, and more a matter of what prevents him from doing something.

iii) When God objectifies this possible outcome in time and space, it is not the motive, per se, which causes the agent to do x; rather, what causes the agent to do x is the reification of that logical possibility.

Although a real agent may act according to a motive, this doesn’t mean his motive is the sine qua non. If God instantiated a zombie, the zombie could do the same thing.

Although an actual agent is motivated to do x, the ultimate reason he does so is not because he was so motivated, but because it was logically possible for him to do x, and God instantiated that logical possibility.

iv) We also shouldn’t assume, without further ado, that if a sinful agent sins because he is motivated to sin, that a sinless agent sins because he is motivated to sin. That’s a separate issue.

“i) What qualifications in your model of human action would make God blameless for the evil done by human beings?”

I’ve answered that question once before (see above).

“ii) I’m not debating hypotheticals; I am trying to understand what is actual. If God’s goodness is actual, and so is evil, how are we to understand that fact?”

How are we to understand what fact?

God is actual and cannot be other than actual. But evil is contingent. Therefore, the actuality of evil is contingent on God’s plan for the world–which he executes in time.

“iii) That seems to obscure the issue and present a false alternative.”

What does “that” refer back to?

“The issue is whether or not God is justified in permitting evil. It might be the case that God is justified in permitting evils even if they are gratuitous.”

How do you justify gratuitous evil? By definition, if you classify evil as gratuitous, then its gratuity defies justification.

“Permission of gratuitous evil could still be justified if the gratuitous evil was an unnecessary and unwanted side effect that was necessarily made possible by a prior, necessary good—such as libertarian freedom, etc.”

ii) Perhaps you mean the possibility of evil is necessary, but not the actuality of evil.

Assuming, however, you subscribe to divine omniscience, then God knew that endowing rational creatures (men and angels) with libertarian freedom would actually result in evil. So it’s not as if God is merely permitting the possibility of evil; rather, he’s permitting the reality of evil.

iii) In that case, you’re back to the freewill defense, according to which evil is a necessary, but incidental consequence of libertarian freedom. A means to an end which is justified, either by the greater good of freewill itself, or the instrumental value of freewill in the production of greater goods.

iv) You also need to explain in what sense libertarian freewill is a necessary good. Creatures are contingent beings rather than necessary beings. It’s unnecessary that any creatures have libertarian freewill for the reason that it’s unnecessary that there be any creatures at all.

So perhaps what you really mean is a conditional necessity: if there are (rational) creatures), then they must be endowed with libertarian freewill.

v) Of course, you also need to present an actual argument for your contention that the good of libertarian freewill trumps all of the attendant evils.

vi) And for someone who eschews hypotheticals, your own position is mined with hypotheticals.

“So God wouldn’t be in a position to eliminate every moral and natural evil.”

But if it’s merely possible, then why can’t God prevent a mere possibility from becoming an actuality? After all, to say it’s possible is to say it could either occur or not occur.

Doesn’t that present your God with two alternate worlds:

a) A world in which evil is possible, but that possibility is never realized.

b) A world in which evil is possible, and that possibility is realized.

Why would God instantiate (b) if (a) is available? Not because of libertarian freewill, since both (a) and (b) exemplify libertarian freewill.

ii) Or are you now claiming that libertarian freedom renders the occurrence of evil inevitable–in which case God can’t eliminate evil without eliminating the libertarian freedom of his rational creatures?

But in that case, moral evils would be justifiable rather than gratuitous inasmuch as their occurrence is justified by the greater good or instrumental good of libertarian freewill (assuming the freewill defense is even a sound argument).

iii) You also have to explain how a freewill defense applies to natural evils as well as moral evils.

“But this is because they are unnecessary consequences of a prior good that necessarily includes the possibility of evil, and contingently results in the occurrence of evil—not because they are necessary means to an otherwise unrealizable end.”

i) When you say that libertarian freedom contingently results in the occurrence of evil, does this mean the occurrence of evil is inevitable?

If it’s not inevitable, then God can prevent it from happening, can’t he?

If, on the other hand, it’s inevitable, then this is a necessary side-effect of libertarian freedom–in which case the only justification you can offer is a teleological (=means/ends) justification.

ii) BTW, do you think that God possesses libertarian freedom? If so, then God’s freedom carries with it the possibility of doing evil, right?

“Also, it is a false alternative to say that either evil is instrumental in the realization of some otherwise unobtainable good, or evils are gratuitous. Evil could be unnecessary for the realization of all goods of overriding importance, without being useless to God given the fact of its occurrence.”

“Given the fact of its occurrence”? But, according to you, it’s occurrence is not a given. Only a possibility.

“Once evil occurs (or is anticipated) as an unwanted side effect that was necessarily made possible by giving creatures a specific kind of freedom, God can use evil for good purposes. He can order things for good ends and bring good out of the evil that creatures will cause.”

You make is sound as though God is on a learning curve. He’s improvising. Adapting to unforeseen circumstances.

But if that outcome is truly anticipated, then there’s a sense in which God wills that outcome. It serves a purpose–and not merely as a divine afterthought.